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May 18, 2009
Boehner to Pelosi: Put up or shut up
Rick Moran
House minority leader John Boehner has called Nancy Pelosi's bluff by calling on her to prove her accusations that the CIA lied to Congress or apologize.
Boehner, who appeared on CNN, would appear to have trapped the Speaker into giving substance to her scurrilous charges or making a humiliating retreat. The cable network's website is reporting:
A key Republican leader demanded Sunday that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi produce evidence to back up her assertion that she was misled by the CIA on the use of so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques.
Last week, Pelosi reiterated an earlier claim that she was briefed by the CIA on such techniques only once -- in September 2002 -- and that she was told at the time that the techniques were not being used.
A recently released Justice Department memo, however, says the CIA used waterboarding at least 83 times in August 2002 in the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, a suspected al Qaeda leader imprisoned at U.S. facilities in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Waterboarding, which simulates drowning, has been described by critics as torture.
"Lying to the Congress of the United States is a crime," House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said on CNN's "State of the Union."
"If the speaker is accusing the CIA and other intelligence officials of lying or misleading the Congress, then she should come forward with evidence and turn that over to the Justice Department so they be prosecuted.
Boehner said he had been receiving CIA briefings for more than 3 years and never felt "misled" by the agency.
In desperation, Pelosi shifted her story once again on Friday by switching gears and accusing the Bush Administration of lying. The fact that she can't keep her story straight as well as her bald faced lies about the CIA that have been proved by the release of documentation, means that this will no doubt end badly for the Speaker.
It won't cost the speaker her job - not with every women's group in the country ready to go to bat for her. But there is no doubt she has lost whatever credibility she had and will become a millstone around the neck of Democrats for the foreseeable future.
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